Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Exhaust hole saw guide for cutting out baffles

Hi all,

I'm trying to remove the rear two baffles from my stock '07 SM pipes. As others have noted, the welding on the rearmost set is a bit stronger than in previous years, and doesn't seem to want to break for a hammer and chisel. I decided to try with a 2 1/8" hole saw as others have done, since it should end up giving me a cleaner hole than with a drill.

I twisted and turned the pipe in the baffle until it broke off. Now my problem is that I've got this big hole in the center of the baffle, so there's nothing I can sink a drill bit into in order to keep the hole saw in place until it manages to bite into the baffle. All I've succeeded in doing is scratching up the baffle quite a bit.

Is there some simple way to steady the hole saw that I'm just not thinking of? Should I use a larger hole saw that'll just barely fit into the pipe? Or, should I abandon the hole saw and accept the jagged edges that I'll get from cutting out the baffle with a series of 3/8" holes?

Thanks,
--Brandon

I did sort of the same thing by mounting my drill in my vise and setting the trigger lock so the drill spins on its own. Then I rested the pipe against a 2x4 wrapped in a soft cloth and held it up against the spinning holesaw. It bounced a bit until I finally got it stable and the holesaw began to run in its own tracks.

Cut through in about five minutes. The whole time I was thinking I'd really like to use my cutting torch, but I didn't want to ruin the chrome, so I kept going.

I did mine the same way. You just have to put some pressure on the drill until it starts cutting. I used some WD40 also to lube the bit. It will jump around some but it will work.

Someone once posted a very slick way to saw baffles - cut two hole saws of equal diameter, weld them together and turn the two into one very deep hole saw, deep enough to clear the through pipe.

wasn't there a video on how to remove the baffles in this manner?

run a search on "removing baffles video" and see what pops up.

Just remember that with or without a pilot bit a hole saw wobbles a little and the hole will be a little larger than you planned.

mike

Don't worry about that. Just stick it in there and go. The hole saw will find it's own center to some degree. I did mine with a 2 1/8" and they came out great.